Home Canadian Soccer Men's National Team Canadians need to applaud Akindele for his rookie-of-the-year award

Canadians need to applaud Akindele for his rookie-of-the-year award

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Since he has only turned down a Canadian national team invite — and has yet to turn down the Canadian program entirely, it’s OK to applaud Tesho Akindele’s major MLS award win as a victory for soccer in this country.

Akindele, who was born in Calgary, but grew up in the United States, was named the MLS Rookie of the Year on Monday. Akindele scored seven goals and added three assists during the MLS regular season for FC Dallas, and scored a playoff goal against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Between Akindele and the Columbus Crew’s Ethan Finlay, that’s 18 MLS regular-season goals out of players who, ahem, could be playing for Canada. National team coach Benito Floro has been tracking both players, but Akindele made headlines by turning down the invite to join the Canadian squad for its most recent friendly against Panama.

In the most recent issue of Plastic Pitch(CLICK HERE), Akindele told Martin MacMahon that he was gutted by Canada’s 8-1 loss to Honduras that eliminated his birth nation from the 2014 World Cup qualifying process. At that time, Akindele was keen on playing for Canada.

But, it serves no one to throw mud because a player (past or present) doesn’t accept an invitation to play for Canada. If anything, trying to shame guys who don’t play for Canada only helps drive away future prospects who may have options with other nations. The continuous vilification of Asmir Begovic or Teal Bunbury isn’t going to make a young player who may hold more than one passport that Canada is the place where he wants to play internationally.

So, for this reason, we need to applaud Akindele’s achievement. Even though he has yet to play for our national team, he is the first Canadian to ever win an MLS ROY award. If we want players like Akindele or Finlay to play for Canada, we need to use the carrot, not the stick. So it’s time for us to applaud.

 

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5 Comments

  1. BCM

    December 4, 2014 at 5:39 am

    Agree with @Seathanaich. And Finlay, there should be no anger at a guy born AND bred elsewhere. He’s American. His father is Canadian. Same with Landon Donovan. Would be great if Finlay suits up for Canada (to deepen the pool), but no anger or even angst if he doesn’t.

  2. john anderson

    November 30, 2014 at 10:18 pm

    save the applaud until he plays for canada

  3. jamonty42

    November 27, 2014 at 8:16 am

    Canada’s friendly vs. Panama was just that… a friendly. Akindele’s team was still in the midst of the playoffs and Akidele is a big piece of that team. Had Vancouver been in the quarterfinals and Tiebert opted to go play for Canada over a playoff game, there’d be hysteria from Whitecaps faithful. The point of the article is taken, well done Akindele and kindly consider a Canada camp the next time the opportunity arises. Hopefully the next time won’t have adverse conquences to club commitments and you’ll be free to show your talents for Floro and teammates.

  4. Jeff

    November 24, 2014 at 9:25 pm

    Nope he’s dead to us 😉

  5. Seathanaich

    November 24, 2014 at 7:52 pm

    Akindele was raised elsewhere, therefore if he doesn’t play for Canada there shouldn’t be any of the more legitimate anger that is directed at people like Hargreaves or LeRoux. Following him until he makes a decision makes sense, but premature emotional investment in him is not healthy. His team was still in MLS playoffs, so people are reading too much into that.

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